


Blood & Gold

by starvinbohemian



Category: Days of Our Lives
Genre: F/M, a bit sexy, a bit twisted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 06:10:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4735412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starvinbohemian/pseuds/starvinbohemian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s starting to feel like déjà vu, her coming to him for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood & Gold

It’s starting to feel like déjà vu, her coming to him for help.

Theresa is all doe eyes and quivering lips as she reaches for him. She’s wearing the dress he likes, the short red one that fits her like a second skin. Her perfume fills his nose as she presses close, her breasts brushing his chest. 

_I need you._

It’s hard for Chad not to grin with all his teeth as he tells her _no_. 

No. He won’t help her. Not this time. 

She pulls back in a sharp jerk, and then he does laugh. He laughs right in her face. 

All traces of sweetness gone, she glares at him. He can see her anger brimming over. She’s practically vibrating with frustration. Chad savors the sight. She’s never more beautiful than when she’s blazing with fury. It takes so little to ignite that fire in her, because she’s always poised to be tipped right over the edge. Sometimes, he likes to just _push…_

_Sorry, kitten, no dice._

He can smell the desperation coming off of her. She _needs_ him, right? That must mean that she’s gotten in over her head again with this latest scheme. Maybe on a different day he would have offered a hand to pull her out of the deep end. (He has before.) But, if that’s what she wants, then maybe she shouldn’t have told Abigail, shouldn’t have _bragged_ about his involvement last time, when Abigail’s mother had been the target. Yeah, _maybe_.

Theresa’s eyes narrow, and she hisses her favorite insult at him: _coward_.

He clucks his tongue in admonishment. If she weren’t as mad as a wet cat, then she probably would have thought twice about lashing out at him while she still needs him. For a dedicated schemer, Theresa has terrible impulse control.

(That’s where he usually comes in: the steady hand to guide her baser instincts in mutually beneficial directions.) 

The insult rolls easily off his back. He’s no coward. Theresa has no idea how much courage it takes to wake up every morning as a Dimera, knowing that the devil is his father and that tricks and temptations lie behind every corner of the cold mausoleum he calls home. She’s never had to tell Stefano Dimera _no_.

(Chad has. And every time he manages it, he emerges a little bit stronger. A little bit _brighter_.)

Theresa imagines herself a victim, and that’s something Chad never does. Rather, he’s a survivor. Always has been.

For all her black sheep moments, Theresa is a Donovan and a Brady. It never ceases to amaze him that she doesn’t realize how close she stands to forgiveness and complete absolution, only needing the simple offering of a sincere-sounding apology. Pride blinds her.

Theresa has no hope of frightening or shaming him. It’s amusing how she tries, though. He thinks she forgets who she’s dealing with sometimes, possibly because she’s gotten too used to dealing with Brady Black and his fragile, if tenacious, grasp of chivalry. Brady feels _guilty_ after lashing out at a woman. For wanting and hating her at the same time. The doe eyes probably work wonders on him. That’s a shame. For Brady.

Chad thinks that the poor guy never stood a chance. Theresa is too smart, too stubborn, too _hungry_ to be resisted by someone so fickle and unsure of himself. And now they’re bonded _for life_ through that poor baby they share. 

Chad doesn’t have that problem. A _Theresa_ problem. Despite all current evidence to the contrary.

_We done here?_

He can see the wheels turning in Theresa’s mind. He’s obviously in a mood, so how will she get her way this time? Hmn?

He gets his answer as soon as it comes to her. Smirking, she slinks toward him, her lips in full pout. Fake vulnerability didn’t work— not on him— so she’s going with sex. At least this approach is more honest. 

Looking at Theresa, Chad suddenly sees the ghost of Sami Brady smiling back at him. The association makes his skin crawl, and he looks away when she reaches for him. 

Still, his blood warms when she presses close and whispers against his throat, with undeserved confidence: 

_You’ll help me._

(And he might. Eventually. But she doesn’t get to know that.)

Her lips are hot against his skin as she takes his hand and presses it against her bare thigh, pushing upward until he’s fondling her. She came prepared: no underwear. This angers him. He’s not Brady, and she should know better than to assume he’s so weak and predictable.

He’s a little angry with himself, too, for the shiver that goes up his back and proves her smarter than he likes to admit. Chad fingers her with lazy, controlled circles over her clit, her dress bunched up over his wrist. He watches her try to pretend this is about him, as if she doesn’t want this, too, even as her eyes glaze over and her mouth falls open in a gasp at a well-placed draw of his finger.

Running his fingers through the slick evidence of her arousal, Chad smirks. She looks startled. Theresa initiated this but, as always, she only realizes she’s surrendered too much control after the fact.

She really does need him. How she lasted this long without him, he’ll never know.

Theresa might think she wants Brady, but Brady could never match her. He’ll never _know_ her the way Chad does. If he did, then Brady would probably run screaming. Somewhere, deep down, Theresa knows this. 

And so she comes to him. Over and over again. And, sometimes, Chad lets her. 

He doesn’t feel like it today. It’s more fun to watch her squirm.

Chad leans in close, his gaze glued to her mouth. Theresa squeezes her thighs around his hand and makes a sound in the back of her throat that makes him briefly consider replacing his hand with his tongue. She tilts her head up for a kiss, her glossy lips parted enticingly. Chad lets their lips brush.

And then,

_That all you got?_

He withdraws his hand abruptly, leaving her with only more reason for frustration. Turning his back on her, he returns to his forgotten scotch.

She stands there for a moment, dazed, her dress still bunched up inappropriately on her hips. And then she realizes her humiliation, and her eyes flash with fury and indignation. Glaring at him, she jerks her dress down with a snap of her wrist.

_Bastard._

Leaning against the wall, Chad holds her stare as he puts his fingers, still slick with her, into his mouth. Her face goes slack, watching him taste her on his fingers. Torn between anger and arousal, her sweet face contorts with confusion.

Observing the mess he’s made of her, Chad thinks back to before he knew he was a Dimera. Back to when he was just some scruffy kid with awkward, too-long limbs, perpetually scuffed sneakers, and a lazy attitude. The man he is now wouldn’t look twice at the man he was. Theresa, being the superficial gold-digger she is, wouldn’t have looked at him either. He wouldn’t have been able to take her apart just to put her back together again.

Theresa doesn’t know it, but she’s lucky that the neglected, gutter-trash kid in him recognized a kindred spirit when he saw one. 

Until she realizes their affinity, their shared weak points, she’ll never be able to match him. Not really. Maybe, one day, she’ll learn how to really play at his level, and then what a wonder (or dark nightmare) they’ll be.

Chad suddenly catches his own reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece, and for a second, he sees E.J. instead of himself looking back at him. It gives him a start. 

She's watching him, too.

 _Is this because of_ her?

Her.

Abigail actually wasn't on his mind, for once, but he still inwardly flinches as if she were, the bitter longing largely reflexive by now. Chad sees the disdain in Theresa's eyes when Abigail’s name accidentally slips his mouth, and it burns like acid on his skin. She likes to put her finger into that particular wound and _twist_ the same way he likes to _push_.

She's scored a direct hit against him, but Chad smiles anyway, the glass of scotch resting casually against his lips. With no small amount of satisfaction, he tells her that she’ll have to dig her own way out of her mess this time. There will be no help from him. 

The way her face falls is a balm over his bruised ego. She is her own worst enemy.

Or maybe Chad is. There’s something wrong in the Dimera blood, something that twists and confuses love until it’s something more familiar. Like hate. 

He doesn’t love her, though, and he highly doubts that Theresa deludes herself into thinking that she loves him. No, because they suffer from the same affliction: wanting people who are too good, too _pure_ to ever appreciate or love them back. It's masochism at its finest.

Theresa is more accomplished than him in that area, though, because Chad couldn’t get pregnant to trap Abigail even if he wanted to. Abigail walks around completely free of him, but Brady will never be free of Theresa. She’s made sure of that.

But it’s not enough just to have him. She wants Brady to _love_ her. In addition, she wants to keep Chad in her pocket, for his money and power and ability to break her down until she begs for more, because Theresa is a greedy, covetous person. A vast abyss of need. She hates Abigail, because Chad wants her.

As cynical as she is, Theresa’s eyes beg for love. Even as she bites and scratches. And maybe, when he suspects it’s sincere, a part of him— the secret part that’s still scuffed sneakers and awkward limbs— quakes a little.

But not really. He knows she’ll reach for anything, for _anyone_ when she’s desperate enough. Capitulation would only be in service of her avarice, because Theresa would never love him back. In terms of their game, Chad could tell her he loves her— he could attempt that lie— but she would never believe him, so what would be the point?

He likes their relationship just as it is, with him in control. Love would only mess everything up.

With the exception of the occasional time in the bedroom, he’s never at risk of losing control of himself around her.

But she can still sometimes surprise him.

Such as when she suddenly says, _Liar._ She's sneering at him.

He frowns. _What?_

Theresa raises her chin defiantly, as if the tatters of her dignity aren’t littered at her feet.

 _You’ll help me, because you_ care _about me. We’re the same. And I would do it for you._

That’s a lie if Chad’s ever heard one.


End file.
